


Alleluia

by MidoriKurenaiYume



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Car ride talk, Dialogue, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Honesty, Some Humor, hints of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-29 00:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11429781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidoriKurenaiYume/pseuds/MidoriKurenaiYume
Summary: "You have atattoo?!" she exclaimed, shocked.Summoned as Heroic Spirits at the Church's service, during a long car ride Gilgamesh and Arturia have some conversation.AU





	Alleluia

**Author's Note:**

> In this AU, let's assume that the FSN canon Church is made of people who do mean the best for the world, as utopic as that is. There is no sequel/prequel planned for this; it's just a glimpse into a possible AU.
> 
> Title: from a Kalafina song, their 13th single. I chose it as title because I liked one particular part of the lyrics, "we'll head towards the light", and it's kind what I was thinking when writing this fic.
> 
> Sooo... A couple of days ago I had an accident at the train station, due to too many people I was pushed and fell on the badly done concrete, rolling across it, so now I'm full of bruises and contusions and confined to bed for a week. While it's extremely painful and unpleasant, it gives me more time to study and I guess to post more GilArt as well :P  
> I hope you enjoy ;)

...

...

“I can’t believe it,” she muttered under her breath, her fingers impatiently drumming on the steering wheel. “I can’t _believe_ it,” she repeated a little louder, looking into the rear-view mirror at the man who, breathing heavily, was standing outside the car.

Said man was as pale as a ghost, and he openly glared at her when he heard her words, even though his clearly sick state prevented him from appearing as menacing as he was usually capable of being.

“Spare me your comments, Arturia,” he snapped, his voice coming out wavering slightly.

She made an effort to reign in her temper, but it was extremely hard, and she ultimately just gave up.

“Seriously!” she almost hissed, shaking her head. “How is it even _possible_ that you get carsick?”

He didn’t dignify her rhetorical question with an answer, and given his still rather greenish complexion, she could understand why. He was probably fighting to prevent himself from throwing up.

Seeing the man with whom she had completed countless assignments being clearly unwell, it could have been possible for Arturia to become worried about him, but she was momentarily still too astonished to have room for any other emotion.

Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, had become carsick. She had probably never taken real notice of it in the past, since she had always been the one driving and they had always gone through mostly straight roads until now, but taking the street full of turns that went up and down a mountain had been too much. His foolish pride had not made him admit that he was getting ill, and she had only noticed when glancing at him and seeing how pale and unwell he had suddenly looked.

Her fingers gripping the steering wheel again, Arturia considered the situation carefully. They didn’t have any medicament against sickness, but they had started their new assignment early, therefore they had plenty of time for Gilgamesh to recover. Furthermore, the road was not expected to have many turns anymore, which meant that the rest of the trip was likely to be manageable. They should be able to get through this inconvenience with no major trouble, even though the situation was certainly unusual.

Considering their personal circumstances, it was even more out of the ordinary.

About five years before, they had been summoned as Heroic Spirits, to be the Church’s trump card in their work as ‘supervisors’ around the world. Throughout the past years, they had learned enough about the modern world to be able to blend in perfectly. Or rather, they had learned enough for Arturia to be able to swiftly and efficiently make up for all the times Gilgamesh did not even make an attempt at hiding his open disgust at how the world had changed through the centuries.

The Church put up with their sometimes odd behaviour without complaints because their services were needed, but the priests had also been rather cunning in finding an easy way to control them: they did not give them unrestricted mana access. The rare times in which they had to fight, they received no mana limitations, but the rest of the time, they didn’t have the possibility to fully use their abilities. Such a thing wasn’t enough to put them at actual disadvantage in case they were suddenly attacked, but it did give them limits.

At the moment, they were on their way to formally pick up someone on whom the Church had some suspicions, but they were early and had more than enough time to get to the city with leisure. The returning trip wasn’t going to be problematic, as there was going to be a private jet at their disposal; therefore, as long as Gilgamesh was able to live through the rest of the – still rather long – car ride, there weren’t going to be any other incidents.

Finally, he climbed back into the car, his dark scowl making it clear that he was not going to tolerate any comments on his predicament. She observed him from the corner of her eye: his skin colour wasn’t completely back to normal, but he was obviously much more collected and the look in his eyes wasn’t dulled by sickness anymore, therefore she deemed it safe enough to hit the road again.

However, now that her disbelief had lessened slightly, Arturia was surprised at feeling a small stab of concern for her companion’s health. She had never seen Gilgamesh in a position of being powerless in such a way, and she knew that it couldn’t have been pleasant for his pride, having been betrayed by his own body through as unexpected an illness as nausea.

She knew that he was not going to like her inquiry, and she knew it was unlikely he would give her an answer, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “How are you feeling?”

She kept her eyes on the road, but she could _sense_ the glare he sent her way.

To her surprise, however, he actually replied, his tone firm yet casual, “Some wine would be appreciated.”

She almost rolled her eyes. _Of course,_ he would bring up the lack of wine. Of all the subjects he had been able to find to complain about, this was his favourite by a mile. This was the case in spite of the fact that it was his own behaviour that had made the Church give them severe restrictions about it.

There had been an occasion in which he had destroyed a bar, tearing it to pieces, when the place had not managed to provide any amount of satisfactory wine for Gilgamesh’s tastes, and since then – even if it wasn’t directly related to the incident – they had been strictly forbidden from consuming alcohol. Not that Arturia minded, since she wasn’t fond of it anyway, but for Gilgamesh, it was different.

He already despised the modern world as it was and disliked the priests who had summoned them; he had not been as accepting of their authority and didn’t miss an opportunity to voice his vehement disagreement. And Arturia’s suggestion to drink non-alcoholic wine had had the sole result of increasing his outrage, even though she had only meant to be nice, since he didn’t have enough mana to access his Gate of Babylon to get to his personal wine storage when during such simple car rides.

Keeping her composure, she calmly reminded him, “You know what happened the last time you wanted wine in this era. You weren’t satisfied with the service and kept demanding for better quality.”

He scoffed. “I was even too tolerant of those mongrels’ ideas of refined beverage. In my time, wine tasted of _wine_ , it wasn’t some coloured water filled with cheap alcohol.”

She lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Are you saying that there was no alcohol in the wine from your time?” She had never tried his beloved wine from the Gate of Babylon, even though he had deigned to offer it to her more than once, but she was rather certain that it was alcoholic.

“Of course it contained alcohol, otherwise calling it wine would be an insult.” He snorted. “Yet in this era, mongrels keep adding whatever disgusting substance they can find and still dare claim it to be wine.”

This time, she didn’t refrain from rolling her eyes, making sure to pay attention to the road nonetheless, but didn’t reply to his comment.

After a brief silence, she let one of her hands leave the steering wheel to reach for a bag of snacks, pulling one out and starting to chew quietly. She didn’t offer any to him, knowing he was completely uninterested in that kind of food, but felt his eyes on her once again.

“Your voracious appetite never leaves you,” he remarked, the smirk in his voice not lost on her, and she focused on the food she was swallowing to avoid snapping at him.

It wasn’t her fault if she had a humongous appetite and ate much more and more often than any normal person would; after all, after finding out about his carsickness, it wasn’t like he had much room to make fun of her.

It was truly as if, by limiting their powers as Heroic Spirits, the Church had rendered them more human in all their endeavours.

She mentally sighed as she swallowed her second snack. What a fine pair they made: a tall, haughty wine addict and a short, perpetually hungry driver.

Irritated by his comment and her own thoughts, she pushed her bangs out of her eyes, attempting to solely focus on the road, but it was a futile effort. Given that it was a rather hot summer and the air conditioning inside the car did not work very efficiently, even if she had pinned up her hair as usual, some locks were still beginning to stick to her skin.

As she had to push her hair out of her face for the fourth time, she finally muttered under her breath, “I should seriously consider cutting my hair.”

Again he stared at her – not that his eyes often left her when they were in the car together, she knew that – but this time, his comment took her aback.

“There is no need for you to attempt to conceal your gender by cutting your hair.”

She shot him a sidelong glance, shaking her head minimally.

“It’s not about concealing my gender, but about practicality. Long hair is often in the way and sometimes I don’t have the time to take care of it properly. Short hair would make things much easier.” And her eyes briefly left the road once more to flicker to his short blond hair, which he had not bothered spiking up for the trip.

He noticed her glance, and grinned, making it obvious that his former carsickness was now completely gone, at least for the time being.

“There may be practical sides to it, but there is little else that short hair would benefit. It’s however positive that you don’t mean to cut your hair in order to conceal your gender, as it would have been a rather futile effort.” His crimson eyes flashed. “Your forms make it obvious that you’re a woman.”

She didn’t dignify his last words with either a comment or even simple acknowledgement, choosing to focus on another part of his sentence instead.

“Lots of women in this era have short hair,” she pointed out. “Things have changed vastly from the past, and today hair length isn’t used as a way to distinguish genders.” She was silent for a few seconds before adding, “ _So much_ has changed. Nowadays many people also choose to pierce or ink their skin. There was something of the kind in my time, but very rare and not so widely spread.”

Gilgamesh was not silent for long, casually replying, “In my own time, it wasn’t as rare. In fact, it was much more common for people to have the skin adorned in a permanent way, as I have done as well.”

It took her a few seconds to register his words, but then she blinked a couple of times and had to fight to keep driving as normally as possible.

“You have a _tattoo_?!” she exclaimed, shocked.

She wasn’t going to tear her eyes off the street to stare at him, even though she was tempted to. Her disbelieving curiosity must have been easy to read on her face, no matter how swiftly she tried to hide it, and he scoffed. Without even glancing at him, she could feel him raise an eyebrow at her.

“It’s not anywhere on my visible skin at the moment, for it would include for me to remain bare-chested. And I will remind you that, when I last removed my garments in a public place, you shouted at me for half an hour.”

She glared at the road in front of her, refusing to blush at the memory of him casually getting rid of his shirt and pants in the square of a town full of tourists, claiming the weather to be too hot to bother with such articles. She had pointedly avoided staring, therefore she didn’t recall seeing any marks on him.

“That was _because_ it was a public place, Gilgamesh.”

“Oh? So as long as it’s a _private_ place, you wouldn’t mind?”

Taking advantage of the fact that the road was completely straight and completely empty, she turned her head slightly to glare at him directly.

“You are offensively shameless,” she retorted. “I have no desire to see you unclothed.” Seeing his once again raised eyebrow, she added, “Not even to find out what kind of gaudy tattoo you decided to have carved into your skin.”

There was a brief silence, during which she moved her head slightly to go back to stare at the road, but she couldn’t stop her mind from making new considerations, because the more she thought about it, the more it sounded strange. It was rather odd for a person like Gilgamesh to have gotten a _tattoo_ , and she couldn’t prevent herself from saying that out loud.

“Although I will have to say, it _is_ surprising that you allowed any person of the modern world close to you, and with a needle too.”

“I would never allow such a thing to happen.” His expression, as she noted with a brief glance, was a mix of haughtiness, disgust and disbelief, therefore she couldn’t help frowning.

“Then how–?”

“The ‘tattoo’, as you call it, is a series of marks from my time, due to my godly descent, which I thought would fade once I was summoned. However, since becoming part of this despicable world, it has become permanent.”

He sent her a searching glance, before adding suddenly, “You have something similar too. Whatever glow your body possesses when you fight at total power is now present on you all the time.”

Perplexed, she stared at her visible skin.

“I don’t glow,” she naively replied, giving him the perfect opportunity to smirk at her.

“Oh, for mere mortals, you don’t. They just see you as magnetically attractive. As a Heroic Spirit, I see your _soul_ glowing.”

She wouldn’t have known how to answer, hadn’t she learned some sarcasm in all these months of having to deal with him.

“Something useful to not get lost in the dark, I suppose.”

That fact that she could get away with such a comment, or that she would make such a comment in the first place, was a strong example of how the interactions between them had changed. She had started to give him sarcastic replies more often, and he had started to tolerate them.

It had admittedly taken quite some time, because at the start, back when they had been summoned, when they had first had to work together and she had talked back to him, he had made a serious attempt at attacking her, which she had been able to just barely avoid. Now, there was more camaraderie between them.

As their conversation seemed to have ended, they proceeded driving in silence for a long while, until they saw the faraway roofs of the city appearing in the distance. Both sat a little straighter.

Checking the address just in case she remembered it wrong, Arturia found a place nearby to park the car, and turned off the engine.

She exchanged a brief glance with Gilgamesh. They would have biting conversations, sometimes using sarcasm and occasionally even teasing each other, but they would not talk about their respective weaknesses to anyone else. They had enough respect for each other not to do such a thing, as they had learned to work together and be partners.

“Let’s get this job done,” she firmly stated, before unfastening her seatbelt and exiting the car.

He closed the door behind himself, and only gave her a brief nod as reply, but it was enough.

Meeting his eyes, her lips almost tilted upwards, but she controlled herself. He seemed to guess what she had been about to do though, and smirked widely.

“The weather is sufficiently hot, I can always threaten to take off my clothes again.”

She growled. “Don’t you _dare_.”

It seemed that, since every trace of his previous carsickness was gone, his pronounced smirk was ready to become permanent on his face once again.

“After the target is delivered to his plane, we’ll see if you can stop me, my dearest Arturia.”

...

...


End file.
